our single family residential services
Needs & Options Assessment
Our homes are where we live, work, love, have families, and take out the trash. But lifestyles change and buildings need to change with them. We gain partners, have babies, learn new hobbies, and sometimes need to change our homes to address our new way of life. Whatever your new lifestyle, Studio CrowleyHall can help.
During our Needs and Options Assessment phase, we’ll help you identify the essence and spirit of who you are and provide options for how that may be embodied in your home. We'll work with you to explore your needs, determine the exact spaces that fit these needs, and provide recommendations for how to proceed, whether renovating or expanding your existing home or building new.
We understand the myriad elements that must be factored into your decision-making process, including budgets, schedules, and code requirements, and we'll ensure each element is carefully considered as we develop our recommendations. We'll guide you through the maze of variables and options, synthesize your needs and wishes, and help you determine the best path to take.
Renovations and Additions
Our collaborative process will ensure that your ideas and goals are reflected in the designs we create for your home.
We'll start by doing an in-depth analysis of your property, including precise measuring of the areas to be affected so that we may create accurate drawings of existing conditions. We may also work with engineering consultants to evaluate existing systems, such as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing.
Simultaneously, we'll work hand-in-hand with you to establish and prioritize a list of needs for your home to ensure that our design solutions address your and your family's current and future plans.
Once a design for your home is established, we will provide detailed technical drawings that we can use to identify and hire a building contractor, to obtain regulatory permits, and to construct the building.
When construction begins, we'll oversee the process to ensure that our design intent is accurately carried out. We'll make sure that you understand what is going on and what input is required from you as we proceed.
New Home Construction
We understand how overwhelming it can be to manage all the elements that must be considered when building from scratch. We'll start by establishing exactly what you and your family need in your new home and how to prioritize this list of needs. From there, we can help you locate the right property on which to build, if you don't already have it in your possession.
After the property is secured, we can evaluate how to best use it to fit your specific needs—considering things such as building location, site access points, and roads, as well as environmental aspects such as wind direction, sun angles, and views. Using this information, we'll create a master plan—drawings showing new design alternatives (including buildings, roads and landscape features such as swimming pools and gardens), which incorporate existing site elements that are to remain.
Once an option is selected, we'll begin to design specific buildings, using the master plan to guide us as we delve into the details. During this phase, we will integrate your functional needs and aesthetic goals with the structural, zoning and building code requirements and construction method options, developing the beginnings of an architecture that reflects who you are. And whatever your priorities—cost, functionality or beauty—we'll develop a design solution that is tailored to your exact needs.
When the design phase is complete, we'll develop detailed technical drawings that accurately describe the design and technical quality of the building. These can be used to identify and hire a building contractor, obtain regulatory permits, and ultimately, to construct the building. If you need to appear before design or zoning review boards, we'll develop the presentation necessary to get the approval we need.
Once construction begins, we'll oversee the process to ensure that the design intent is accurately carried through to final completion of the building.
Construction & Project Troubleshooting
Not all projects go well. Maybe you have a situation with your contractor and you need a second opinion. Maybe you can't get a building permit or received a "stop work" order. You are stressed and not sure how to best proceed while protecting your investment.
Studio CrowleyHall has direct experience with resolving these types of issues and can help keep you moving forward.
Sample construction issues we can address:
general construction inspections and reviews,
structural inspections,
stop work orders,
obtaining permits,
design reviews,
material selections (windows, doors, flooring, tile, etc.).
Let us help you maximize your time and money—call us today for a consultation.
Repair & Maintenance
Whether a single family residence or a multi-story building, Studio CrowleyHall can help assess your building to best address ongoing short and long term repair and maintenance issues.
Often with older buildings, trying to understand the technical and design issues associated with roofing systems, building finishes, and window/door openings can be overwhelming.
Studio CrowleyHall specializes in holistically analyzing and providing material options and related costs for all aspects of your building or home.
Let us help you maximize your time and money with anything from an overall building assessment to roof replacments or lobby upgrades.
Custom Feature Design
Drawing from a background in fine arts and construction, we can design and create custom pieces for any room in the house. Allow us to help you add that customized element to your home, using art to further express the personality of you and your family.
Our custom feature design services include:
• Custom Pieces—We can add a richness and depth to your home through the use of a custom tile mosaic, painting, fresco, or mural. Artistic floors, ceilings, walls—even windows—can add just the unique touch to your new space.
• Mural Facilitation—Perhaps you would like your family members to help develop a special mural for your home. We can coordinate this process to ensure a positive outcome and a whole lot of fun in the process.
• Custom Furniture—For dining areas, living rooms, and other sensitive areas requiring a more customized touch, we can create pieces of furniture to meet your unique needs.
• Individual Art Work—Choose from our gallery of landscape painting and artwork to find a piece that's appropriate for your home. We can also create custom artwork that is tailored to fit your specific needs.
Whatever your taste and desires, we can help you choose the custom feature design service that's perfect for you.
I Don't Know What I Need!
It's okay—we can help you figure out and prioritize your needs, establish a budget, and make a plan to move forward.
By breaking down what appears to be an overwhelming mess into smaller, more tangible, projects (with costs for each), we'll help you make a plan to address the work in a more systematic manner over a period of time.
Studio CrowleyHall is experienced with all aspects of construction; we specialize in breaking big problems into smaller ones so our clients can tackle them in a sytematic way without feeling overwhelmed.
Case Study / Wiseman Residence
Background
A couple with two young children came to Studio CrowleyHall wanting to add on to their 1912 row house located in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C. In order to make more room for their growing family, they hoped to create a family room on the first floor. On the second floor, they wanted a new master bath directly off of their master bedroom. The owners envisioned both new pieces as additions to the existing house. The third floor—which housed both parents' home offices, and the basement containing the kids' playroom and guest suite—were not included in the scope of work.
Challenge
Addressing the owners' stated needs was fairly straightforward—both additions were feasible and the owners loved the concept design that we worked out with them. However, it was apparent that the cost was beyond what the owners' had hoped to spend. We offered options for ways to reduce the cost—mostly by reworking spaces within the footprint of the existing house—but the owners didn't want to compromise their vision for cost savings. So they decided to proceed with the design they loved. In the meantime, as we had gotten to know the clients a little better and saw how they lived, we had a nagging sense that, even after construction was done, they weren't going to be fully satisifed with their house. In addition to living there, both owners ran their own businesses from home and had at least one employee coming to work on a regular basis. Since the businesses hadn't been part of our discussions thus far, we wondered if there were issues involving the integration of home and work that we should investigate further.
Solution
At our next meeting, we told the clients we were concerned that this design might not be the right solution for them. We knew this would likely come as a surprise to them, since they were happy with it and they were expecting to move forward to the next stage of development. We then went on to explain our sense that there were other issues relating to how they live and work in the house that we hadn't discussed and that we felt still needed to be addressed.
After getting over their initial surprise, the wife acknowledged that she was very unhappy with her office space on the third floor, particularly the fact that her employee had to go through the family's private spaces to get to work. This led into a long conversation that helped us create a redefined list of priorities and goals for improving the house to better suit all of the family's needs. At the end of this conversation, the wife expressed a great sense of relief and gratitude that we had noticed something wasn't sitting quite right and cared enough to bring it up.
Once we understood all of the issues and challenges that the family faced-both personally and related to their businesses—we were able to present a comprehensive design solution that worked much better overall. By reorganizing and relocating spaces within the confines of the existing structure, we were able to use all of the space much more efficiently—and eliminate the need for the addition on the 2nd floor. We not only met the family's goals, but did it in a simpler fashion and for less money than the original design, which had only met a fraction of their needs.